Vienna

( Originally Published 1921 )

ONE day, in the spring of 1889, when I was nearly thirteen years old—a quiet, overgrown girl with long, heavy hair, but otherwise with no distinctive trait—my mother called us down to her room at supper-time, and announced that she had a great surprise to impart. We were all going to Vienna, to live there a long time ! President Harrison had named my father "Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary" to Austria, and we must prepare to be off very soon. My interest and excitement were intense. I wrote the new title over and over, till I knew how to spell and say it by heart. What I had heard of Austria was limited and vague, but I asked more, until I was informed that Vienna was considered one of Europe's brilliant capitals, that there were great families living there whose names were known in history back through the centuries, as those of robber barons and Holy Roman emperors. Also there were art, music, fine clothes, court functions, fancy leather goods, galleries of treasures, palaces. All these words figured in our table conversation now, and I followed their trails, varied as they were, to dictionaries, and drew my own conclusions.

Our sailing date was soon announced. We were going to land at Southampton, be in London a short time, and then go straight to Vienna, either through France or Germany, as my parents should decide at the last moment. Anyhow, we would have quite a trip, and I was elated by this prospect. I had always been told we were too poor to go abroad, and I had so far learned, as much as I ever hoped to know of foreign lands through albums others brought home. I had been quite re-signed to this privation, but was delighted by the sudden turning in our path and the new prospect of adventure and discovery.

We sailed early in March. Grandmama, with a 'companion, decided to come, too, and spend the summer months abroad; so our party made six. The night be-fore our embarkation we all dined with my father's brother, and lost in that large family company we children, unnoticed, ate of every dish, from oysters to marrons glacés. Our ordinary simple diet had not prepared us for digesting such a banquet, especially on the eve of a trip at sea, and the results of our orgy were frightful ! For several days we tossed on a stormy ocean, unable to touch food or even to sleep much—helpless victims of our gluttony. My small brother had high fever, and my mother felt his life was really in danger, for the ship's doctor could do nothing, he said, and merely recommended fresh air when we could go on deck, and quiet till then. Mine was a healthy case, as I was much stronger always than the boy.

About the third day out my father carried my limp brother up on deck, and I was able to go that far on my own feet. Then we stretched out and wistfully watched a sullen, lead-colored, hideous sky, and a rough sheet of water equally ugly. The boat still rolled and tumbled. Young Ulysses was himself by and by, however, and he explored the wonders of the ship with interest. In more recent times the luxury of steamers makes one forget the uncomfortable life habitual on them during my child-hood. Food then was always indifferent and frequently wretched. In those days what dainties our friends sent us were really precious, and I remember especially the pleasure we took in a barrel of oysters and some oranges, which were gifts at parting. Our steamer-chairs also had been given us. But in spite of this my first impressions of my journey out into the world were horrid !

At last, with the help of several books, the long, dull trip, which lasted about ten days, ended. We entered, after the trip by boat-train to London, a huge caravansary where one got lost. Bad food, rooms that did not remember being cleaned, mud, drizzle, darkness—all contributed to our doleful feeling, as we did our round of sightseeing. The Tower of London I liked very much, however; more than anything else I remember.

My father and mother were "commanded" to a drawing-room and went, both looking very fine. I was allowed to help my mother dress. She was quite radiant in orange brocade embroidered with silver beads, and she wore a becoming touch of brown and white at her shoulders and on her head.

That day Queen Victoria was holding court, and was gracious enough to remember my grandfather had visited her at Windsor Castle years before. The Prince of Wales, Albert Edward, mama said looked desperately bored, while the Princess was smiling and gracious. Distinguished men, statesmen of various countries, asked to meet my father, and talked with him about the different interests of America and the currents of European politics—all of which gave my parents rather an unusual first reception in these official circles they were just entering.

It seemed curious to me to be abroad, where every-thing was so different from the frame I was used to. The English country from Southampton to London had appeared very beautiful to my eyes—greener, richer vegetation and bigger trees than at home, with here and there a castle or a manor-house almost hidden away. At that time it was beyond my powers to define the feeling I had, but in the light of later knowledge I think it must have been the dignity and growth of these traditional homes with a history which appealed to me. Attaching the past to the present, they gave promise of strength and a continuous long future. Even a child is sensitive to such things as atmosphere, and realizes differences, and, though London suffered from smoke and noise, though our hotel was a hideous place, with much gilt and dirt and uncomprehending German waiters, and though we were very uncomfortable, I liked the streets and buildings immensely.

After our short stay in London we left for Vienna, direct by way of Belgium and Germany. My father was anxious to reach his post and take over the work given him to do, and his sense of duty suppressed all further stops on the way. He was sorry to disappoint us, he said, and promised to bring us back some day to see these lands we were skimming through. My mother gave me a blank book and pencil, with which I was "to keep a diary about Europe." Luckily this document was lost not long after it was written, but I remember with warm affection the little black oilcloth book and my pencil. They kept me busy and amused, from our arrival at Ostend, or whatever was the port, all through the long journey south to the Austrian capital.

In Vienna the legation carriage and footman were awaiting us, and we fell in love at first sight with the place. There was a long drive from the train to our hotel, which stood in the heart of the old city. The quarter first traversed had broad, open streets and stuccoed houses, large but quite uninteresting. Then we reached the "Ring," with its rich public buildings and its parks, covering the space of what had been the fortified walls of old Vienna. Suddenly we turned short at right angles and plunged into a tiny street, so narrow that it was almost possible to shake hands from one side to the other. And such sidewalks ! Two people abreast was their utmost capacity; a third person had to walk in the street itself. It was crowded with a gay, well-dressed, talkative mass of people rushing both ways, getting tangled up and untangling themselves. Now and then a "fiacre" passed, the driver cracking his whip and shouting to make way. Then came some lumbering family carriage with big colored crests on the side-doors, or a push-cart would pass, with vegetables and fruits piled high on it, or with fragrant violets and daffodils. Before each vehicle there was a scramble to the sidewalk and a flattening out of pedestrians against walls, amid laughter and shouts.

The shop-windows looked most attractive on this smart street, which was the famous Kârntnerstrasse. I liked it and the people. Suddenly we stopped. Our footman, whose name was Franz, and who at once announced he had been with the legation many years and spoke "Engleesh easee," got down and opened the door. We all alighted before what looked a very unpromising place, and went in. Franz explained that there was a newer hotel, but not so elegant, and that it was "not for Excellenz to live in." It was on the Ring and was quite modern, while this, the Munsch, was where kings and princes and Excellenzen always stayed ; and "You will very much like eet, Excellenz."

Inside a clean, low hall, painted white and with marble floor. There was no lift, but a wide staircase walled on each side, white, with a thick red carpet. One flight up, there were a dark landing, heavy red velvet curtains, and a door of white painted wood. This flew open, both panels, and we stood on the threshold of the apartment of kings, princes, and Excellenzen !

Enormous rooms, two of them, one in brown-and-blue brocade of large design, the other furnished in red dam-ask; lots of gold everywhere, on frames, mirrors, and carved backs of chairs. There were great chandeliers of gilt, bronze, or Bohemian glass—candelabra, clocks, and vases of elaborately worked metal stood on high mantels. A hundred people in each room would not have made a crowd. One room had five windows, the other more, perhaps. Tables and chairs stood about in formal style. Perhaps to kings, princes, and Excellenzen this might be a normal habitation; to a simple little American girl it looked like a palace, vast beyond belief. Our bedrooms were in proportion, but there were no baths at all, nor even toilet-rooms. My father asked the price, and was told a figure which proved that in Vienna space was a drug on the market. So we took the rooms.

We children had one with the funniest beds—head and foot boards equally high, heavy quilts with sheets but-toned back on them, and a soft down cushion as large square as the bed's width, to use as an extra comforter. The walls were so thick and the window spaces consequently so deep that these made attractive alcoves for use. I had in mine a desk and chair, while my brother used another as his playroom.

We all decidedly liked the place as soon as we got used to its queerness, and it was pleasant to have excellent food well served in our rooms by a friendly, smiling waiter, who spoke all sorts of languages, though he was not particularly comprehensible in any.

With the memory of the Karntnerstrasse in my mind I did not think of a possible view from our windows, and it was only after a long time that I went_ where the desk stood and glanced out. An enchanting scene was below —a large cobblestone-paved square, and in the centre a fountain with simple, perfect lines, quite an early and a very good creation. About this was grouped a motley throng in bright peasant costumes, most decorative. Then radiating out from the centre were quantities of push-carts covered with fresh flowers—piles of them—and any you wanted, and as many as you could carry, I found cost really a very small sum. The edges of the square were vacant and the whole space was surrounded by façades of lovely old houses, while just opposite our hotel the Capuchin church stood, where all the Hapsburgs have been buried these many centuries. It was a simple structure.

The Viennese seemed a charming, happy-go-lucky people, with a love of finery, a childish gaiety, and a desire to help everyone about them.

That first morning I did not gain any further knowledge, but I already had the feeling I was very much at home in this new place. Breakfast was brought up soon,, and all the grown-ups exclaimed over their delicious coffee. By the end of the meal bathrooms had become a matter of indifference to all of us, and we were completely under the spell of Vienna. We unpacked our trunks, glad to think we were to stay on for some time in the transformed old palace, for that was the real origin of our hotel.

My father made his first call on Count Kalnôky at once. The latter attracted him, as he did every one else. I heard afterward that Kalnôky had been considered one of the most delightful men of his epoch, and that much of his success in handling the délicate mechanism of Austria-Hungary's foreign policy had been be-cause he was such a personal favorite with all who negotiated with him. At that time we knew nothing of him, save that he presided at the Foreign Office, and that a first call was due him. When he returned my father's visit and spent a half-hour with my mother, the gay connoisseur was quite evidently taken with her beauty, and made himself so agreeable that a warm friendship was at once established between the American Legation and the Ballplatz.

At the end of his visit we were sent for, as the Minister said he was keen to meet a pair of children who came to Austria from so far. I was very much interested to see this first native who crossed my path. He made us some simple, cordial speech; asked if we had seen the pretty Würstel-Prater, how we liked the country, and he made his way straight to our small hearts by his warmth and sympathy. Of medium height and fairly heavy build, he had thin hair, a round face, and some-what prominent eyes. He possessed, also, a guileless expression, a very pleasant voice, a good-natured laugh, and, without any familiarity, seemed at once to be on rather intimate terms with those he met. He inspired confidence in my father from the first, and they remained firm friends throughout the remaining time Kalnôky was in office. Though there were various delicate and difficult negotiations carried on between their respective governments, more and more my father grew to trust the man who on that first day had given us a welcome which seemed sincere.

I had never been out of the Anglo-Saxon circle at home, and I was struck by the fact that the Minister of Foreign Affairs bowed low over my mother's hand and kissed it in adieu, and that at the door he stopped, clicked his heels together, and made a general bow to our family group. I think, also, he wore a monocle, which amused me. He was an old bachelor, I learned, and poor, and he had, though he was of noble birth, made his own career. At the Ballplatz—where he occasionally gave an official party, opening up the palatial rooms and doing everything with great dignity and splendor—he lived habitually in one of the smallest apartments and kept very quiet socially. He always used a smart fiacre in-stead of a private carriage, and one saw him sometimes flying along at breakneck speed such as only the typical Viennese cabbies dared to adopt.

In fact, "Wiener chic" ordained that any man with pretensions to success should make a ,point of using a very fast fiacre, except when on gala occasions of ceremony it was replaced by court carriage or family-crested clumsy vehicle.

Later I met Kalnôky often, and watched and listened always with great interest as he talked. He was vivacious, talented, cultivated, yet always with a shrewd sense of values and a judgment which made him one of his Emperor's most valued servitors. Of different quality and race from the Aehrenthals, Berchtolds, and others who brought Austria to the brink of the precipice in 1914, Kalnôky was a patriot, statesman, and a gentle-man as well.

Our first month we spent at the quaint Munsch Hotel. We grew to be comfortable and to like more and more the view of the square and the luxury of meals served in the huge salon. We even got used to the lack of baths, and a tub in our rooms seemed quite satisfactory.

Court mourning was deep, for Rudolf, the Crown Prince, had died just a few weeks before our arrival.

How this dreadful loss had come on them few Austrians knew. "The Vetcéra" was at the bottom of the trouble, of course. With him on the last fatal party had been, besides herself, Prince Philip of Coburg, and one other man whose name I have forgotten. Among the groups far from court, gossip over Rudolf was rife and every sort of scandal was passed about. The Emperor was deeply affected and people were received by him only on state business. The Empress had retired in her grief to some far-away palace and stayed there. We were told that, when questioned, various members of the court had replied: "Our Emperor, whom we love dearly, is suffering a great loss, and he does not wish it discussed. We know nothing." Evidently the diplomat whose curiosity had led him to ask indiscreet questions was not an ex-ample to follow, but the colleagues whispered, and, naturally, the nobility must have done likewise, even while toward foreigners loyalty to the bereaved sovereigns was maintained.

The Emperor was adored by his subjects in the gay capital, who showed affection and admiration, also, for the dead Crown Prince, and sympathized even with the latter's follies. Both men had had a simple charm and real love of the city's life, in which they had always taken part unofficially. The Crown Prince, like his father, was known as a wonderful shot and horseman. He had a quick wit and a bright smile, and had spent much time in the theatres and cafés, or in the Prater, rubbing elbows with the crowd. He had used a fiacre, like all the jeunesse dorée, and spoke the Viennese patois to perfection.

His people were inclined to sympathize with his various peccadilloes, on the score that he did not care for the Belgian princess he had been obliged to marry, and who, they said, had made scenes and misunderstood him al-ways. "The Vetcéra " was one of Vienna's own daughters, a great beauty, though her bringing Rudolf to the point where suicide or murder must end their romance was really exaggerating matters. The easy-going mentality and invariable weakness for the romantic made the people say this gently : "They were very much in love and very handsome, and the Stéphanie was not adroit." Then the gossips sighed.. .

Whether the death of the Crown Prince at his Meyer-ling shooting-lodge was accident, suicide, or murder; whether the party was sober or intoxicated, there is no doubt that Prince Philip of Coburg—who was married to another Belgian princess and, consequently, Rudolf's brother-in-law as well as friend—acted with tact and promptitude when the tragedy occurred. Before any one was up next morning the Empress had been awakened at the Hofburg palace and informed. She had been vastly brave, and had faced the situation with the pride which always characterized her. After a moment to steady herself, she had said she would in person tell the Emperor, and had gone about her errand at once. He was more bowed than she by Fate's blow, but together they had traversed the ordeal of the funeral ceremonies, hushed discussion to what extent they could, and at the time of our arrival in Austria were more than dignified in their mourning she in her retreat, he with courage facing his duties.

Because of this my parents had little social life at the beginning of our Austrian experience. After meeting Kalnôky, a few calls and presentations followed, and they saw colleagues who were of superior or equal official rank, ambassadors and ministers, but that was all.

Spring grew into summer. My father had taken hold of the legation work, and was handling it so that the clerks and secretaries were amazed at how much they could accomplish, and how alive they were.

An apartment had been found for us, with another in the same building for the legation offices, and we were to take possession early in the autumn. Meanwhile my parents' furniture had been cabled for. Unused since the Morristown cottage days, we all rejoiced over the arrival of the pretty things of which we were so fond. It was decided that we should move out for the summer to a quiet little country hotel situated on a beautiful hillside, near Vienna, where a valley spread with cyclamen-blossoms, pink and white, stretched at our feet. The summer at Baden promised to be very agreeable.

Before we went to the country the subtle charm of the Kaiserstadt (Emperor's city) was at work making us welcome. Soon we really thought the people most lovable and their background as entrancing as themselves. It pleased us to think we were to live in this frame for a time; four years, perhaps, if all went well? Life took on a new interest, even to a little girl.

That first summer in Austria was quite different from anything I had ever lived through. Baden, and beyond it, Bad-Voslau, where we went for the month of August, were both small and not particularly fashionable resorts, but had the great advantage of being near town, so my father could spend his office hours at the Embassy. Yet they were really countrified as far as our life went, and entirely quiet socially. My mother found them restful. From Vöslau the view out over the valley was beautiful, on the order of that over Paris from St. Germain, but greener and with a greater sweep of valley. The vegetation along drives and walks through the country was rich and varied, there were large swimming-baths in pretty surroundings, which, being supplied with continuously running water from naturally warm sulphur springs, offered us children much pleasure. The largest pool seemed almost a lake, and there were excellent swimming-masters. We took swimming-lessons, and progressed rapidly. I found afterward, however, it was much easier to swim in sulphur-charged than in ordinary water, and that I was far from seeming proficient elsewhere.

Somehow time passed very quickly in these surroundings. We were the only foreigners in either Baden or Bad-Vöslau, and we knew none of the Austrians about us. One could not, however, but admire and like them as one looked on. Gay and sunny, they sang and laughed, and never quarrelled nor wore discontented faces. In the mornings at the pool they shouted with one another, and if I found myself in deep water a friendly pair of eyes seemed always watching me, and a friendly hand was outstretched to hold my chin, with a cheering word about how well my swimming was going. In the afternoon one saw groups in pretty clothes wandering over roads or fields, the girls' arms full of poppies and corn-flowers, daisies and buttercups. Along the roadside were scattered farmhouses with vine-clad arbors, and there were always little family parties seated in the green shade, drinking milk or beer or the light local wines.

It was on Sundays or in the evenings, though, that spirits were highest. No matter how small the place, one always found a restaurant or two with tables in the open, and with really good music played by a more or less important orchestra. All the population turned out to sit in the cool air for hours, eat their light supper and listen to their national operas or operettas, or dance to the inimitable Strauss waltzes, as only young, light-hearted Austrians can. The elders, sipping their beer or wine, gently, placidly nodded in time to the music, with an amiable expression on their fat faces. Nearly all the older people had grown heavy with comfortable living, while the youngsters moved gracefully and were usually slim. Later, as I grew to know society better in Vienna, I noticed that among the nobility only the women put on flesh with years, evidently from their sedentary lives and large families, while riding, shooting, mountain-climbing, and immense activity, both in their civilian lives and their military profession, as well as in the super-intending of the work on their estates, kept Austrian men thin as well as immensely alive and interested.

Not so the bourgeois class we saw at Baden or Bad-Voslau. Apparently "business" meant to them opening offices or shops slowly and late, carrying on the day's work in a spirit of contentment, and closing up as early as possible to return to their ham-and-salad supper and the endless glasses of beer en famille afterward. I am sure no two middle-aged business men ever talked shop after office hours in old Austria, and, though they could scarcely be called "live wires," they gave the impression of making a solid, reliable class for the foundation of a political state. Such peasants as we saw were dull-looking and never seemed able to digest what one said sufficiently to give a straight reply; but they partook of the general amiability and struck one as rather helpless children, content with their lot, devoted to their Emperor, and without the slightest ambition to move on in the world..

This stability in the Austrians' lot had a very marked effect on the people of all classes. The nobility were born where they were, to stay there. They had intermarried for generations and everything was laid out for them from birth. They must be agreeable, unpretentious, truthful, fine sportsmen and accomplished socially, but no one asked them to be intense or intellectual or ambitious; and they never were. They lived in their châteaux in summer and looked after their people, of whom they did take care in the most paternal way. They lived in dignity and state in winter in their great palaces, where, except for an occasional ball, they entertained only a few people, and those quite informally. Rarely they went abroad. One or two sporty couples went to England each year, where the men hunted and the women shopped. This was especially the case in such families as had English traditions or blood. A few of the men took long shooting trips to India, Africa, Russia, or the Rockies; also they went to Paris and Monte Carlo or Biarritz for a few weeks' change and gaiety. But in general they lived at home, where their own court society, the races in the spring, the country in summer, and their shooting in autumn and early winter made an agreeable routine programme, each year like the other. They were all handsome, high-bred, and extremely winning, but not much varied in type, and perhaps giving one the idea that they had mentally stood still for a long time with no desire to grow in any way. Their constant intermarriages made them so interrelated that one was always surprised things went as well as they did with these aristocratic brains and bodies.

In the middle class, tradition seemed as powerful as with the aristocracy. One had a feeling the bourgeois also lived and provided for his family on the same plan his ancestors always had. They kept their banks, offices, and shops, their hotels or apartments in certain quarters of the city, distinctly theirs, and they had their villas out of town, with fine carriages and horses. In high-finance circles society was gay, extravagant, and showy, and in the shopkeepers' group more modest but equally typical.

Beneath these three classes were the peasants. None of the groups intermingled their lives except inasmuch as their necessities of mutual requirements overlapped. At church the nobles sat in their loges, high finance and the bourgeois in places apart, while the peasants filled the body of the church; but all stood under one roof and apparently had kindly, tolerant smiles for one another. At a religious or patriotic festival the peasant on the sidewalk, the bourgeois in the window, and the noble in the procession were all warmly devoted to church and sovereign. There was no competition, no disdain, none of the ill feeling brought about by our fight for existence or our ambition to shine. Each, no matter what he did, would always stay in the station to which he was born, and he seemed to like that station and make the most of it, without desire to climb.

"Noblesse oblige" made the aristocrat busy himself with his duties toward the state and the peasant, whom he helped and took care f. He left business to the bourgeois. The latter handled it well, and the peasant did his work, which was rarely too hard, and took his amusements in off hours, depending on his landed proprietor for much that elsewhere he would have had to think of himself—such as supplies in a bad year, care in illness, or a decision as to the settlement of his possible difficulty with a brother peasant. Un-American all these arrangements were, but with certain advantages, for each class had its happiness and pleasures at their appointed times, and on the whole the state was kept and well served, and the people looked content.

Provincial and narrow and in some ways antiquated in their methods, also much more Oriental than ourselves, they lacked the intense push we prize; but the Austrians used up less strength, had to stand less wear and tear, and lived longer. One saw quite old couples in every walk of life sitting about, resting after their work years. On the whole, marriages seemed happy, also, and masses of children crowded about parents who treated them well and cared for them lovingly, even if rather casually be-cause of their numbers.

Spending three or four months in the country gave us an opportunity to look closely at the people, not of the capital and the court but those who composed the mass of the Austrian nation, and one could not be near them without recognizing their qualities. Soft voices, gay spirits, warm hearts—they radiated kindness. Never pushing, not caring for foreigners at all, they yet were invariably courteous and ready to serve us to the best of their ability. A sunny, happy, kindly, innocent, attractive crowd always—who when the Emperor's birthday, with its celebration of music and song, occurred put all their devotion for him into their expressions of enthusiasm. They would say with affectionate tones: "Unser Franzerl, naturally we love him, for he is so echt Wiener." Calling him "our little Francis" and saying he was a "real Viennese" seemed to bring the man close to them, not as the great ruler but as one of themselves; and truly, later, as I knew him, he seemed to deserve their sentiment and to return it quite sincerely.

We heard from many, stories of his fondness for his people; how in his youth he adored Vienna and its citizens, wanting them to enjoy their lives; how he had helped with all the charities and amusements for the poor of the city; how he always circulated freely and in-formally among them, and was seen on the Ring constantly; how there was none so humble that he might not go direct to Francis Joseph and tell his trouble, sure of a hearing and sympathy, and often also having justice or assistance given him by the Emperor's personal order The ruler's simple life was well known, and tales of his unspoiled ways were told; how he slept in a camp-bed in a whitewashed room with no carpet, in the midst of his fine palaces; how he rose daily at 4.30 A. M. and began his work, afterward eating only the lightest of breakfasts; how he attended mass daily. So it was, His Majesty gave the example of frugality and industry to his people and thought of them while his empire still slept, not even disturbing his old valet, who posed to the outside world as the master's friend and confidant, and undoubtedly was the source of a good many of the stories which circulated and everywhere created a pleasant impression of the sovereign.

After the Crown Prince's death the Emperor buried himself for the first period of deep mourning at the pal-ace of Schönbrunn, alone with his sad thoughts and bit-ter disappointment, while his people waited in hushed sympathy outside his gates. When he drove out they stood along the road to town in bareheaded respect, peering anxiously into his face for signs of recognition, and looking for the old smile they had grown used to. Soon it came back, at least for those whom he passed thus, or those who immediately surrounded him in his household. Then he took up the burden of his duties; but after his son's disappearance the Emperor gave up everything but these duties of his great position. One exception he made : the shooting in season on his various estates.

My father had come home extremely pleased with the sovereign, when at his first reception by the latter he had presented his credentials. His Majesty had shown infinite cordiality ; had said he was immensely glad to have my father represent the United States in Austria; had told how well he remembered receiving my grand-father at Schönbrunn many years before, when during his trip around the world the latter stopped for a while in Vienna. The Emperor asked my father about the last years of President Grant; asked news of grandmama, whom he also remembered. He said he was pleased she liked his home well enough to return again now on' a pleasure trip. Then he inquired if my father were married and had children, and their ages, and did he shoot ? On the affirmative reply to this, he went on to say he hoped they would shoot together some day, and that he also trusted we would like our life in Vienna and be happy there. He was all smiles and amiability, very magnetic—an example of what a man in his situation should be to win the hearts of those who approach him. He spoke no English and my father no French, but each had some knowledge of the language which the other used, so though an interpreter was present there was little translating to do.

Several times I saw the Emperor in the streets of his capital during the first winter we spent in Vienna. Occasionally he passed in a closed carriage, but generally he drove in a victoria, rather an informal-looking small one, where the back of his seat and the hood were low behind him, exposing him more fully to view than seemed usual in such vehicles. He seemed to show himself purposely to the passers-by, and he looked about with interest while the coachman, in rather plain livery, drove two fine horses rapidly. I do not remember a footman always being on the box, nor an aide-de-camp in the trap, though there may have been. The Emperor habitually wore the uniform of an Austrian general—or perhaps a field-marshal—with a full, large emerald-green plume ; and I recall how the latter floated out backward from the rapidity of motion ; also how he not only seriously saluted when people bowed or curtseyed at the road-side, but how he would smile genially and give a friendly little nod frequently, while he watched humble groups pass. Each person attributed this apparent recognition at once, to himself or herself, as a mark of favor.

Francis Joseph was very erect and had a slender figure for his age—fifty-nine or sixty, I think—with the healthy, ruddy skin of one who spends much time in the open air. He was rather bald, with white hair on the temples and at the back of his head. All the hair was clipped very short, but he wore fairly long, snow-white whiskers, and had a shaved chin, well modelled ; thick lips; but his mouth seemed mobile, and his smile was agreeable. His nose was heavy and a little too short to be called aquiline, though it seemed that shape in profile. His eyes, I think, were gray. One remembered them less for their color than for the light in them—of intense sympathy and interest in whomsoever he talked—and for the amusement which often suddenly gleamed in them. Altogether a magnetic, dignified personality, without evidence of effort to draw one to him, and certainly without pose, was the Austrian Emperor in 1889.

He had done his best through many troubles and failures in war and peace, had fought intrigue abroad and at home, and had suffered keenly; yet he held his people's love, respect, and admiration, kept all the various nations of his empire attached to himself, however they might feel toward one another, and in many ways had managed to make good. At last, by his son's death, he stood on the threshold of old age without a natural heir prepared to follow him. One of a group of nephews would inherit his throne. He knew them to be unpopular, yet fate had thrust them now into the place of his own brilliant Rudolf, and Francis Joseph, the first shock over, turned patiently again to his duties as a ruler, and to the more delicate task of educating Francis Ferdinand, the son of his brother, for the succession; an effort, nobly faced without complaint.

We got back to town early in the autumn. The legation moved into its new quarters and we into the big apartment over it, amid the American furniture, which had arrived. There was much joy and excitement in unpacking our things and installing them in our foreign home, where there was plenty of room to spread out. As they were made habitable the great spaces looked very well indeed. Our entrance and marble stairs were quite imposing, and the apartments opened up nicely, from a very light large front hall, where were grouped many typical souvenirs of America.

Among these hung a number of rare and beautiful red Indian head-dresses, of feathers, beads, and leather, given to my father, or captured by him in the Far Western fights in which he had spent his early years of service. There was one whole dress of wonderful bead embroidery, bright blue in tone and so heavy I could not lift it, which had belonged to a red chief's daughter. There were, be-sides, various arms—spears or guns father had captured, as well as his own guns, with which Indians in battle, or buffalo for food and robes, had been killed. All through the years we spent in old Vienna this collection of trophies was slowly augmented. One after another heads, antlers, and stuffed birds arrived, marked with dates and the names of the estates on which they had been killed, and many sportsmen wandered out into that hall after dinner or tea to examine and compare these with some they had heard of elsewhere.

My father was in his element among these first-class sportsmen, some of whom had world-wide records. His own included grizzly bear and buffalo, as well as deer and smaller game in the United States, tiger and elephant in India, and various animals on the African continent; all that had been within his reach anywhere he had travelled.

The Emperor, remembering their conversation, "commanded" my father to an early shooting party of the court, a formal affair. On that first day he beat the other guns and established his reputation. He returned home somewhat weary from the effort of walking and sport after years when he had not held a gun, but de-lighted with the perfection of organization and the quantity of the game. He had been congratulated and praised by all the other sportsmen, the Emperor included, who had said to him, "if he shot like that he must come again, and often !" It was the custom that each chief of mission who could handle a gun was invited once every autumn to a day of imperial sport.. One or two exceptions, men really fond of it, were asked to shoot several times. My father was one of these fortunate sportsmen at once, and after the second season we spent in Austria he was, I believe, included in every shooting party near Vienna which the Emperor gave; much to his own delight, for my father loved the long days in the open, the congenial companions, and the fine opportunity to use his own skill. He also valued the relations so established, which gave him opportunity to place a word now and again to the great advantage of the work he was in Austria to do.

An Emperor in shooting garb, or a Minister of Foreign Affairs over a hunt picnic luncheon, must necessarily be in less formal and less defensive mood to handle business; and they soon learned to trust and like the unpretentious, honest, and very capable representative of America's interests.

Franz, the legation footman who had met us at the station on that morning of our arrival, was much honored that my father, finding on inquiry he knew all about firearms, had promoted him to be "huntsman" instead of looking farther afield for some one to fill this place. With happiness the man would lay aside his livery and don homespun and leather clothes, and if my mother chanced to make some plan for the shooting days he would reproachfully say to her: "Excellenz forget; Excellenz and me, we go to shoot mit Majestät to-morrow—we make no calls." Franz was devoted to the Emperor and glad to be in the latter's neighborhood where he could see him; also he snobbishly enjoyed his rank of huntsman; but most of all he was intensely proud of my father's enormous bags, and he counted the pheasants, hares, or other animals which were put out of commission with a feeling of glory. Always on their return he would announce with grave triumph, "To-day Excellenz kill most hares," or "To-day Excellenz get next most hares. One other have much better luck, more hare run to him—Excellenz not miss !" But Franz liked the shorter announcement best, and generally was lucky in being satisfied that his candidate had carried off the honors.

Besides these big shoots on the imperial estates, my father had opportunities, always seized, of getting chamois or capercailzie on the mountainous estates of various huntsmen he had met before. Among these were Prince Henry Liechtenstein and Prince Montenuevo. The latter was head of the house descended from Napoleon's Austrian Empress and her second husband, married when she returned to her home country after the Restoration in France. Liechtenstein and Montenuevo had been in the United States on a shooting trip to the Rockies in my father's young days, and the latter had been a member of their party, so that they had chummed during weeks of rough frontier life.

When we reached Vienna these sportsmen came to call at once and Prince and Princess Montenuevo were most friendly and charming, and invited my parents to their home. Afterward my father and Montenuevo did much shooting together. Liechtenstein had not married. He was one of the handsomest men in Austria, and one of the greatest sportsmen. A younger son of the reigning house whose name he bore, he used his income wandering, and when at home lived quietly in a small flat at his brother's palace. He rarely went about in society, though when he did go he dwarfed every one by his size, looks, and wit. A most cultured cosmopolitan, at home in Paris and London as well as in Vienna, he was content to live for books and sport, with an occasional romance, which he managed to handle adroitly enough to avoid both scandal and broken hearts. He and my father had much in common in politics, their military life, books, and travel, as well as sport. They also had many friends in common scattered about the world, and Liechtenstein made himself delightful to my mother and became a frequenter of her salon in an informal way. He had been initiated into the Order of Malta or of St. John of Jerusalem, and could not marry, he said; and he would laugh and exclaim: "Why should I, Mrs. Grant? I am old, and my brother is married. He has five sons or more; surely that is enough !" But rumor had it that Henry Liechtenstein wandered and was a knight because of some fair lady whom he could not marry, but to whom for years he had given his allegiance.

If he wore such chains they must have weighed on him lightly, for he was cheerful company, and in the years I knew him I never saw him refuse to smile on any attractive woman. He made himself so agreeable that many a feminine sigh went up to heaven over his travelling propensities, which savored of a desire for escape. He was one of the most interesting and splendid figures in all my impressions of Vienna, and my father and he were warm friends again in their prime, as they had been in youth. Prince Liechtenstein introduced my parents to his family. We found the members of it knew almost no foreigners and realized not at all what was going on in the great world outside their frame. With a quaint expression of despair when my mother would say, "How can you go away and leave such charming surroundings for long, wild trips ? " Liechtenstein would reply : "Yes, of course you are right, they are charming, but they are all my family here, and I must take the air sometimes and see those who are not my family. Here in Vienna I get into a cab on the Ring and say `Take me home,' and the fiacre looks at me and drives to my door. It is not interesting to be only with those who have known you since you were born, so though I like to be here I also must go away sometimes to breathe."

Years after we left Vienna I met Henry Liechtenstein in Paris, in the salon of a great beauty. He was a star still in a most distinguished constellation, and had kept his active brain and handsome figure, though his hair was grown white. We met as old friends, and I enjoyed his quaint conversation, which carried me back to my early youth. He showed real enthusiasm in asking for my parents, and he came to see me once or twice, before I left Paris, to talk of them and of old times.

Later, on another trip, I saw his towering figure in the crowd on the Rue de la Paix—handsome still, but his face much aged. He recognized me and stopped to make the usual friendly inquiries. I told him I was departing that day for Russia. He said: "I am sorry, but give my friends there my remembrances and also messages to your dear parents, when you write to them." Then we passed on our several ways, to meet no more, for shortly afterward I heard that Liechtenstein had died in Vienna. Since the war I have been glad he did not live to see the misery in his own country, his family scattered and sacrificed, and all his friends in the Allied nations grown to be the enemies of what he represented. To me Liechtenstein stood for all that was best in Austria, under the old régime and traditions.

I remember once some one spoke before me of a trait Austrian servants showed of agreeing with their masters, even to the point of asserting things of which they knew nothing or which they knew to be untrue, rather than to contradict or tell an unpleasant bit of news. Liechtenstein showed great tolerance of what some other per-son present had dubbed the "Austrian people's tendency to lie." My father said, smiling: "But you yourself and your class never would lie. Why do you defend it in your people ? "Well," said Liechtenstein slowly, as if for the first time this point was brought up in his mind, "we of the nobility can't lie. We have the obligation to be different from our people and more carefully realize values—to be gentlemen—while our people are like children—they have many good traits and impulses, but not the obligation to be responsible or entirely truthful. Yet it is not wickedness when they do not tell the exact facts; it is more a desire to please or to be polite and amiable. Sometimes, also, it is due to fear, a luxury, the aristocrat cannot permit himself."

I began to understand that in Austria nobility was not a matter of mere palaces and jewels, riches and power, but also a matter of bravery, honesty, and loyal protection to those who had been confided to the aristocrats as "their people." The latter gave work and faithful devotion in exchange for protection and care to them and theirs, in hard times or illness, and it might be that, though their ideals were not ours, a good deal was to be said for the beauty of lives and traditions under such a monarchy.

So I discovered little by little that ancient lands have qualities as well as our homeland for which we claim such high ideals. Both suffer by the fact that in reducing theory to practice individual men contaminate ideals by casual interpretations; but even if one loves the new world better, it is no reason to accuse the old of all the vices. As I grew to know Austria and the Austrians, I grew also to love them and our life there. They seemed all to dislike the Germans, took great pains to use with affectation their own Viennese patois, which had a much softer sound than the language of the northern Teutons. The Viennese dialect was used in the small theatres both at Baden and Bad-Vôslau, where, by the way, the performances were varied and very first class. It was used also in the operettas, the imperial theatre, and even the opera, where altogether classic programmes were given by companies of the best talent in Europe. The Emperor and his court spoke entirely in the same language used by the cabmen and market-women, who had coined this soft, pretty idiom. Nothing pleased people more than for strangers to affect their way of slurring and swallowing words and softening consonants or dropping them, or changing terminations of the harsh German diminutives, and saying Maderl for Mädchen, or Lämperl for Lampchen.

We children took to the ways of the Austrians quickly, and had an Austrian Fräulein Mitzi to teach us through the summer. In the autumn my brother entered the Thérésianum, the great school founded by Maria Theresa for her nobility. It was difficult to enter and stay there because, firstly, the Austrian of rank only was acceptable, and, secondly, the course was difficult for any outsider to follow. But a few exceptions had been made, and at the time my brother entered, the young Egyptian who afterward became Khedive was the only other foreigner in the Thérésianum. He was in a class a year or two ahead of my brother. Aged eight, the latter was taken by us all one morning to begin his new life in the great building. Leaving him there to fight out his des-tiny among strange boys and teachers nearly broke my mother's heart, and she always regarded the years he spent in the Thérésianum as a terrible experience in her child's life, I think.

Really, it was difficult to fit oneself into new ideas and use a new language. The course was a more serious one than that into which small boys in America plunge when they first go to school, but on the whole, after a few weeks, my brother liked his companions and teachers. At any rate, for four years he did well and seemed to have an excellent feeling for those with whom he associated.

In the Legation offices all went smoothly. My father liked his staff, especially his naval and military attachés (the latter was an old comrade of his West Point days), and both had charming wives; so his official family was a gay and happy group.